Charlie was at the bottom of an ocean, but his clothes were bone dry. A school of fish swam past in lazy spirals, their scales catching light from a sun that shouldn't have been visible this far down. The sand beneath his feet was warm and soft, shifting slightly with each step like it was breathing. He could breathe too, which seemed right, though he couldn't say why. The water tasted like nothing. It felt like nothing. It was just blue, in every direction, going on forever.

  A whale drifted overhead, so large it blotted out the sun for a full ten seconds. Its eye, the size of a dinner table, rolled down to look at him as it passed. It was singing something low and long, vibrations he felt in his chest more than heard.

  It sounded like his name.

  He followed it.

  The whale led him through coral towers that spiraled up into the blue like frozen flames. Pink, orange, and a purple so deep it was almost black. Fish darted between the branches. Silver ones, gold ones, and some that flickered between colors like they couldn't decide. A few swam close enough to bump against his arms, curious and gentle.

  The kelp forests came next. Green ribbons swaying without current, reaching up toward a surface Charlie couldn't see. Things moved in the kelp. Shadows that he hoped were dolphins but might have been mermaids. He decided to avoid that part of the ocean.

  Ahead, an archway rose from the ocean floor. It was made of bones. Massive ones, whale bones maybe, ancient and curved. They'd turned to pearl over time, or maybe they'd always been pearl. Light gathered in the arch as if it were waiting for him.

  He walked toward it, but that’s when he got the feeling someone was watching him.

  Charlie stopped, and the fish scattered. Even the whale's song seemed to falter, dropping into silence.

  He turned to see a woman standing on the ocean floor behind him. Maybe thirty feet away. Close enough to see clearly.

  She was wrong.

  Everything else in this place was soft. The fish and the coral let the light dance around their sides. Like they were watercolors and the edges blurred. Colors bled into each other. That's how it worked here, but the woman was sharp. Like someone had cut her out of a different picture entirely and pasted her into this one. Her clothes were pressed. Her hair was neat. She held something in her hand, but it was too small for Charlie to see what it was. She was alternating her attention between her hand and Charlie.

  She looked up one last time and stared directly at him. Not the way the fish or the whale had. Those had been soft, friendly. She looked hungry. Her stare was the way someone looked at something they've finally found.

  Target acquired. Apprehend and extract.

  The thought wasn't his. It sliced through his mind like a cold blade, sharp and completely foreign. Charlie flinched at the thought that wasn’t his. He could only guess it came from the woman, but he was certain it was about him.

  Charlie's chest went tight. His heart started pounding, which was strange, because he didn't know her. He was sure he didn't know her. There was no reason to be afraid.

  But his gut said run, so he ran.

  The water didn't slow him. He moved through it like air, legs pumping, and arms cutting forward. The coral towers blurred past. The kelp forests whipped by. He didn't look back, but he could feel her. She wasn't running. She was walking, steady and unhurried, but somehow the distance between them wasn't growing. Like she knew exactly where he was going and didn't need to rush.

  The archway was just ahead, but it wasn't open anymore.

  A door had appeared in the center of the pearl bones. Heavy wood, ancient-looking, crusted with barnacles and something that might have been salt. And where a handle should have been, there was a lock. Not a keyhole. A series of shells, interlocking, arranged in a spiral pattern.

  Charlie skidded to a stop in front of it. His hands found the shells without thinking.

  There was a pattern. There was always a pattern.

  Spiral into spiral. Fibonacci. He had learned it last year in geometry. The golden ratio, curling inward. The shells were numbered if you knew how to count them. One, one, two, three, five, eight. Each one needed to turn a specific direction to match its place in the sequence.

  First shell, left. Second shell, left. Third shell, right. Fourth shell, left. Fifth shell, right-right-right.

  The lock clicked.

  He glanced back. She was running now and trying to yell something. The words sounded like she was underwater.

  Charlie threw himself through the door and slammed it shut behind him.

  He landed on dry ground, gasping, heart still pounding. A field stretched in every direction. Sunflowers taller than houses, their faces all turned toward a sun that hung fat and orange on the horizon. The sky was the color of honey. The air smelled like summer, like pollen and warm dirt.

  He looked back.

  The door was still there, but only barely. It was fading, edges going soft, dissolving into the sunflower stalks. The handle rattled. Once, twice. She'd reached it. She was trying to follow.

  Then the door was gone. In the distance, a family was picnicking on a hill, their laughter carrying across the field. Charlie wanted to join them, wanted to sit in that warmth and pretend it was his.

  He started walking toward them. The sunflowers swayed in a warm breeze, parting as he moved. The family got closer and their faces almost clear. Charlie could swear he heard them talking, but not with his ears.

  The sun blazed brighter. He raised his hand to shield his eyes.

  *

  His hand found bark instead of air.

  Charlie was climbing a tree that didn't end. He was wearing different pajamas now, the blue ones with the hole in the knee, and he didn't remember changing. Branches stretched in every direction, thick as highways, covered in moss that glowed faint green. The trunk disappeared into mist below and above. Birds he'd never seen before perched on nearby limbs, watching him with eyes that were too smart. One of them had teeth.

  He kept climbing.

  The bark was warm under his hands. Rough but not painful, like it was being careful with him. Every few branches, a new kind of fruit hung from the limbs. Some he recognized as apples or oranges or something that might have been a mango. He told himself, half-recognizing counted as recognizing. Others were shapes that didn't have names. One was a perfect cube. One was humming the star spangled banner.

  He didn't eat any of them. That felt important, though he didn't know why.

  The higher he climbed, the stranger things got. A branch made entirely of books, their pages rustling in a wind he couldn't feel. A nest woven from shoelaces and guitar strings, empty but still warm. A swing hanging from nothing, swaying gently, waiting for someone.

  Charlie paused on a wide branch to catch his breath. The mist had thinned up here. He could see the sky now, or what passed for sky. It was orange and pink, streaked with clouds that moved too fast, like time was different up here than down below.

  A bird landed next to him. The one with teeth. It tilted its head and made a sound like a question.

  "I don't know either," Charlie told it.

  Then the feeling. That prickle at the back of his neck.

  He looked down.

  A woman was already climbing. Not from the bottom, but from a branch maybe fifty feet below. She must have found a shortcut, a faster route through the mist. She moved with purpose, finding handholds without hesitation. She paused to check a little device, then clipped it to her belt and resumed climbing toward him.

  She was tracking him.

  C'mon, Merlose, he's a kid. You deal with these every day. You got this.

  A voice was in his head, but it wasn’t his. A woman's voice, tired but determined, talking to herself the way people do when they're frustrated. Whoever Merlose was, she was thinking about him like he was a problem to be solved. A runner to be caught.

  Charlie's stomach dropped. He climbed faster.

  The branches thinned as he went higher. The bark grew smoother, harder to grip. The birds scattered, disappearing into the mist like they knew something was coming. Charlie's arms burned. His fingers ached, but he could hear her now, hear the steady rhythm of her climbing. She was efficient and relentless.

  The tree ended at a door.

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  It sat in the trunk as if it had always been there. It was made of old wood with iron hinges and a knocker shaped like a lion's head. There was no handle. Just a panel of nine squares, each one carved with a symbol. Stars and moons and suns, arranged in a grid.

  Charlie's hands moved before his mind caught up.

  Magic square. The symbols had values. Star was one, moon was two, and sun was three. Each row and column had to add up to the same number. He'd done puzzles like this in the back of his math textbook, the optional challenge problems that nobody else bothered with.

  He pressed the squares in sequence, rearranging them. He moved the sun to the center, stars in the corners, and moons filling the gaps.

  The door clicked open just as a hand closed around his ankle.

  Her grip was strong but not painful. She'd positioned herself perfectly, one arm hooked around a branch and the other locked onto him. She wasn't letting go.

  Charlie kicked. His foot connected with something solid, harder than he meant to, and her grip slipped. He threw himself through the door, tumbling, falling into warm darkness that smelled like cinnamon and old paper.

  He landed on a carpet. A library stretched around him, endless shelves in every direction, books stacked so high they disappeared into shadow. Somewhere, a clock was ticking.

  He looked back at the door. It was already closing, already fading.

  Through the narrowing gap, he saw her pulling herself up to the threshold. She was fast. She almost made it. Her fingers brushed the door frame just as it sealed shut.

  Then the door was gone.

  Charlie sat on the carpet, breathing hard. She'd almost had him. His ankle still tingled where her fingers had gripped.

  Somewhere above, an old man floated between the shelves on a fluffy cloud, muttering to himself as he searched for a book he couldn't name. He didn't seem to notice Charlie at all.

  Charlie reached for the nearest book, but his hand recoiled at how dry the pages felt. Suddenly, his whole body felt dry. He grabbed at his throat because he could barely swallow.

  *

  His hands were already wrapped around a glass of water.

  Charlie was on a train, though he couldn't remember boarding. The glass was filled with candy that overflowed over the edges. The seats were velvet, deep red, and the windows showed a countryside that kept changing. Mountains became oceans became cities became forests, all of it sliding past like someone was flipping through channels. His shoes were different. Brown lace-ups instead of sneakers. He didn't own brown lace-ups.

  The compartment was empty except for him and a cat that was reading a newspaper. The cat looked up, nodded once like they were old acquaintances, and went back to the sports section.

  Charlie watched the window. A castle floated past, upside down, its towers pointing at the ground. A flock of birds flew by in perfect formation, spelling out a word he almost recognized before they scattered.

  The train slowed.

  He felt a prickle. Something was wrong.

  There was a woman standing on the next platform. Not behind the train or chasing. She was at the next stop, waiting.

  He yelled at the conductor to skip the station, but the walrus just blew a raspberry at him and pulled the brakes with an oversized fin.

  The brakes screamed as they pulled into the station. She was moving before the train had even stopped. She walked alongside it, looking at each compartment in turn. She kept looking down at her hand and then into the windows.

  She was looking for him.

  Cut him off. Anticipate, don't chase. He's pattern-driven. Figure out where he's going before he does.

  The thought hit him like a splash of cold water. She knew him and was trying to beat him to an escape. That just made Charlie want to escape more. He dropped to the floor. The cat lowered its newspaper and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  The train was slowing. It was going to stop. Charlie knew she was going to board and she was looking for him. His gut told him she was looking for him and that he wasn’t safe. He thought about hiding, but that same gut told him she’d just walk straight to his compartment.

  He crawled toward the back of the car he was in. The other animals looked down but paid him little mind. There had to be another way out. A door between cars, an emergency exit, something.

  The rear wall of the compartment was solid wood paneling. No door or window. Just a painting of a ship at sea, waves frozen mid-crash.

  Words were written on a plaque beneath it.

  Two things I require before my voyage can begin.

  Charlie tried to think, but the woman was approaching the car and the animals started to laugh. He wasn’t sure if it was at him or something else, but the hollering was too loud. Charlie put his hands over his ears.

  Two things. What would a painting of a ship require? Wait, he was thinking to literally. The painting didn’t require anything; the boat did.

  He reached over a lemur to grab a glass of water out her son’s hand. He threw it on the painting as the lemur began to howl.

  Then he blew onto the canvas and stepped back. The waves weren't frozen anymore.

  They were moving. The ship was rocking, and there, on the deck of the painted ship, a hatch was opening.

  Charlie didn't think. He pressed his hand to the canvas and felt it give, felt it pull, and felt himself falling forward into salt spray and wind and the creak of old wood.

  He tumbled onto the deck of the ship just as the painting sealed behind him. Through the last sliver of canvas, he saw the compartment door slide open. He saw her step inside, staring at the picture frame. He saw her look at the painting, then at the cat.

  The cat pointed a paw at the canvas.

  Fair, he was a dog person after all.

  She lunged for the painting, hand outstretched, but the canvas went solid a half-second before she touched it. He saw her palm flatten against it, saw her shoulders tense with frustration.

  Then the painting was just a painting, and he was alone on a ship in the middle of a painted sea.

  Not quite alone. A boy about his age was swimming alongside the hull, laughing, doing backstrokes through waves that parted gently around him. He waved at Charlie like they were old friends.

  The ship sailed on. Charlie watched the boy swim until his stomach turned from the rocking. He leaned over the railing, dizzy.

  *

  His knees hit soft grass.

  Charlie was standing in a field of giant mushrooms, the spotted red-and-white kind from fairy tales, except these were the size of houses. His feet were bare now, and the grass between his toes was cool and damp. Somewhere nearby, music was playing. Accordion and fiddle, something jaunty that made him want to dance even though he didn't know how.

  He followed the music.

  The mushrooms formed a kind of village. Doors had been carved into their stems. Windows glowed with warm light. Smoke curled from chimneys that sprouted from their caps. Small creatures moved between them, too fast to see clearly, leaving trails of laughter behind.

  A table had been set up in the center of the village. Long and wooden, covered with food he'd never seen before. Pastries shaped like animals. Soup that sparkled. A cake that appeared to be breathing. Chairs lined both sides, and all of them had life-sized stuffed animals. None of them moved; either they didn’t, or they were waiting.

  A sign hung above the table: YOU'RE LATE.

  Charlie wasn't hungry, but he sat down anyway. It seemed rude not to.

  The music stopped, and he looked up.

  A woman was already sitting at the far end of the table. Not standing or approaching. Just sitting, hands folded on the wood, watching him. Charlie wasn’t sure how he had missed her when he walked up.

  Different tactic. Make him come to you. You're not going to catch this one by running him down.

  The thought curled through Charlie's mind, calm and patient. This woman had set a trap. One he walked right into.

  Charlie's chair scraped back, and the stuffed animals came to life. They vaulted onto the table and ran at Charlie.

  "Wait, I made…" she said.

  Her voice was calm. She sounded tired, and it didn’t sound like a command, but he didn’t wait anyway. Eerie town with eerie food was one thing. A woman wearing a pressed shirt and a straight tie was another.

  Charlie ran between the mushroom houses, bare feet slapping against cobblestones that hadn't been there a moment ago. He could hear the soft padding of the small army of stuffed creatures chasing. The village was a maze now. Alleys that turned back on themselves. Doors that opened onto walls, but she wasn't behind him. She wasn't chasing with the rest.

  That scared him more.

  A dead end. A mushroom stem, solid and smooth, with no door or window. Just a pattern in the spots. Circles within circles, spiraling inward.

  His finger traced the pattern without thinking.

  Start at the outside. Follow the spiral. Don't lift your finger. Don't break the line.

  The stem split open like a mouth.

  Charlie dove through.

  He landed in snow. Soft and deep and absolutely silent. A frozen lake stretched before him, mountains rising in the distance, everything blue and white and still.

  He looked back. The mushroom was already gone. Just snow, unmarked, as if he'd always been here.

  He wondered what she meant by “wait,” but concluded it was a trap. The beating in his chest told him that was true.

  He stood there in the snow, shivering, and wondering why that scared him more than the running did. The cold sank so deep his teeth began to chatter. He clenched his jaw to make it stop.

  *

  His jaw was already relaxed. His feet were warm.

  Charlie was in a city made of clocks. They grew out of the ground like buildings, their faces glowing soft gold, their hands all pointing in different directions. Some ticked forward and some ticked backward. One was spinning so fast its hands had blurred into a single smear of bronze.

  He walked between them, listening to the layered rhythm of ten thousand mechanisms all slightly out of sync. It should have been chaos, but there was a pattern underneath. A heartbeat the city was trying to find.

  The streets were empty. The windows of the clock-buildings showed nothing but gears, turning and turning, powering something he couldn't see.

  He stopped in a plaza where the largest clock stood. Its face was the size of a swimming pool, laid flat against the ground, and he was standing on the glass. Below his feet, the gears moved slow and massive, teeth interlocking, driving hands that measured something other than time.

  He pressed his face close to see the gears turning. It was incredible. The precision and the craftsmanship. His Grandfather had a watch like this, where the gears were the show. The glass of the inlaid clock kept him from falling in, but it also reflected the figure approaching.

  A woman in a sharp skirt was running toward him. Two more figures flanked the streets behind her. Same sharpness. Same wrongness. Same pressed clothes and focused eyes.

  Charlie turned. Another one behind him, and another emerging from between the clock-towers to his left.

  Five of them. Five exits blocked by five versions of her, all closing in with the patient precision of a coordinated team. This wasn't chasing anymore. This was a tactical operation.

  Five nights. Five escapes. Okay, kid. Let's see you slip out of this one.

  There was something in the thought that almost sounded like respect. Charlie didn't care.

  The one in the center was approaching at a deadsprint across the massive clock face.

  Charlie desperately palmed the glass. Beneath it, the gears were still turning and the hands were still moving. His fingers searched, before his left pinky found a tiny hole. A keyhole he hadn't noticed before.

  He didn't have a key.

  The gears beneath him had a pattern. Of course they did. Everything had a pattern. The teeth interlocked in a sequence. Prime numbers. Two, three, five, seven, eleven. He began to tap the glass in time with the clicks.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  He tried to ignore the sound of approaching feet.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Suddenly, the tapping sounded like glass on glass. He looked to see he was holding a glass key. He shoved it into the keyhole, and the glass disappeared.

  He fell through gears the size of houses, through springs coiled like sleeping serpents, through the tick and tock of a mechanism that measured something far older than hours. Above him, the woman held onto a moving gear with two hands.

  Charlie couldn’t figure out her expression. It wasn’t angry, but maybe just tired, or annoyed.

  He landed hard on something that chimed. A room full of bells, thousands of them, piled beneath him. Each one was a different size and sang a different note. The harmony was so beautiful that it made his chest hurt.

  To his right was a middle-aged woman performing a concert for an audience with their back turned.

  Charlie lay on his back, breathing hard. His hands were shaking. He didn't know who this woman was, but she had surrounded him with copies of herself. She'd thrown everything at him, and he'd still gotten away. He had the strange thought that he respected her, which didn't make sense because he didn't know her.

  Above him, the opening ticked smaller with each turn of the gear. The woman hung there, staring at him.

  Huh. Alright then.

  "I'm going to have to rethink this," she said. Charlie was surprised he could hear it over the gears and the bells. He wondered if she said it to herself or loud enough so he could hear.